The Allahabad High Court flagged concern over Uttar Pradesh police shooting accused in the legs and branding incidents as encounters, directing the DGP and Additional Chief Secretary (Home) to appear via video conference for accountability and judicial scrutiny statewide.
PRAYAGRAJ: The Allahabad High Court has expressed serious concern over the rising trend of Uttar Pradesh police shooting accused individuals in their legs and then labeling these incidents as encounters.
Justice Arun Kumar Singh Deshwal directed the Director General of Police (DGP) and the State’s Additional Chief Secretary (Home) to appear before the Court via video conference.
The DGP and the Home Secretary are required to inform the Court whether any oral or written orders have been given to police officers to shoot accused persons in the legs or claim it to be a police encounter.
The Court noted that the practice of police encounters, especially targeting the legs of accused individuals, appears to have become routine. This is allegedly done to satisfy superior officers or to impose a so-called lesson as punishment, the bench commented.
The Court added,
“Such conduct is wholly impermissible, as the power to punish lies exclusively within the domain of the Courts and not with the police. India being a democratic State governed by the rule of law, the functions of the Executive, the Legislature, and the Judiciary are distinct and well defined, and any encroachment by the police into the judicial domain cannot be countenanced,”
The Court further remarked that some police officers might be abusing their authority to attract the attention of higher officials or to create a favorable public impression by depicting incidents as police encounters.
The judge noted,
“This Court is frequently confronted with cases where, even in matters involving petty offences such as theft, the police indiscriminately resort to firing by projecting the incident as a police encounter,”
These observations were made while the Court was addressing bail petitions for three accused individuals who had been injured in various police encounters.
The Court emphasized that no police officer has reported any injuries, raising questions about the necessity and proportionality of firearm use in the claimed encounters.
In one of the bail petitions, the Court had previously instructed the State to clarify whether an FIR had been registered regarding the police encounter and if the statements of the injured had been recorded before a Magistrate or any Medical Officer.
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In response, the State indicated that an FIR had been filed but the statements of the injured were not recorded before either a magistrate or a medical officer. It was also mentioned that a Sub-Inspector initially assigned as the Investigating Officer has now been replaced by an Inspector.
Taking these submissions into account, the Court concluded that the Supreme Court’s guidelines on encounters have not been adhered to in this case.
The bench stated,
“It is evident that in the present case, although the applicant sustained grievous injuries in a police encounter, the directions issued by the Hon’ble Apex Court in People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) and another (supra), as further affirmed in the case of Andhra Pradesh Police Officers Association vs. Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee (APCLC) reported in (2022) 16 SCC 514, have not been complied with. The police have neither recorded the statement of the injured before a Medical Officer or a Magistrate, nor has the investigation of the police encounter been conducted by an officer of a rank higher than the head of the police party involved in the encounter,”
Therefore, it ordered the DGP and Home Secretary to clarify whether any instructions have been issued to ensure compliance with the Supreme Court’s directives in People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), concerning the registration of FIRs, recording statements of injured individuals, and investigations conducted by officers senior to the head of the police party in cases resulting in death or serious injury during police encounters.
Case Title: Raju Alias Rajkumar v. State of UP.
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